MAC Makeup

10 Cat Eye Tips to Easily Add Impact To Your Look (Featuring the MAC Star Trek Collection)

July 25th, 2016 by Karen 36 Comments

Cat eyes.

Seems like they should be easy, right?

Like, how hard can it be to draw a line along your upper lash line with a little flick at the end?

Um…yeah. I wish I was that girl — the one who can effortlessly draw flawless cat eye flicks in a single swoop, but that’s sooo not me.

mac star trek packaging — The MAC Star Trek collection is Starfleet approved

Still, I have figured out a few secret space squirrel tricks over the light years that really do help with your cat eye flicks, and here are 10 of them. I’m using a bunch of products, by the way, from the new 25-piece MAC Star Trek collection, because, as you know, I’m a sci-fi nerd. 🙂 The collection arrives this September.

“Star Trek is an iconic pop culture phenomena whose storylines pushed gender and racial boundaries. For its 50th anniversary, we celebrate each of Star Trek’s powerful women in a transcending, transformational makeup collection.”

— MAC Senior Vice President/Group Creative Director James Gager

1. For big, bright eyes, line just a portion of your upper lash line

Nowadays when doing cat eyes, rather than lining my entire lash line, which I think makes my eyes look smaller, I like to start lining from about a centimer in from the side closest to my nose. So I’m lining about three fourths of the entire length of the lash line, and then drawing the cat eye flick out at the end.

There’s just something about lining the entire lash line that makes the eye look a little smaller, so this way keeps the inner quarter of the lash line unlined.

2. Use different liner formulas together in layers

I’m a big fan of layering different liners together and sketching out the shape of my cat eye before committing to it.

I like to draw the basic shape of my cat eye with a pencil liner first, because they’re easiest to control, and if I make a mistake, pencil formulas are usually easy to correct.

First, I tightline my upper lash lines with the pencil. Then I draw a thin line along the upper lash line and build up the product a bit toward the outer end of the line out to where the flick will begin.

Next, using an angled brush (because the angle fits the curve of the lid, and I think they’re easier to use than a pencil brush for this) to create the basic shape of my flick and set the angle, I drag the product out that I built up with the pencil in the outer side of my upper lash line in the previous step.

Then I layer a liquid liner on top of the pencil liner to intensify it.

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The Day in Beauty Vol. 23: MAC Bangin’ Brilliant Blush…and One of the Best Movies of 2016!

July 19th, 2016 by Karen 15 Comments

mac bangin brilliant blushes — The five new MAC Bangin’ Brilliant Blushes ($16 each)

Why are the $16 MAC Bangin’ Brilliant Powder Blushes in eyeshadow pots?

For the life of me, I can’t figure it out. I’ve picked one of them up assuming it was a shadow at least half a dozen times. Like the matte red, Never Say Never? — call me crazy, but I kinda wanna put it in my crease.

I dunno… Sometimes I think red smokey eyes can look super cool, but maybe I’ve been spending too much time on Instagram lately.

LOL!

These are so bright and so juicy that they remind me of summer fruit.

Mmm… Watermelon…

These five new blushes have joined the MAC permanent line, along with the rest of the Bangin’ Brilliant band, and after spending the past few weeks with them, I think they compare well to my regular MAC daily blush musts, which are Gingerly and Blushbaby, at the moment, in terms of wear time (they last all day long) and blendability (although you do need to use them with the right tools, but I’ll get to that in a few).

Where they definitely differ is size, obvi, and intensity.

I don’t know how MAC did it, but they made these even MORE vibrant than the boldest and brightest MAC blushes around, which is really super cool. I just wish they came in the regular 0.21-oz. $22 MAC blush pans.

These may cost a little less at $16, but they’re also much smaller (0.05 ounces). Technically, though, since you’ll probably need to use so very little, a small pan like this could still last a year or two, depending on how often you wear it.

But that part of me that likes to buy toilet paper in bulk at Costco still wishes they were bigger, man.

mac bangin brilliant blush swatches — From the left: MAC Never Say Never, News Flash, Bright Response, Bright Pink and Saucy Miss

Lately I’ve been liking very minimal cheek color, so because these are so intense, and because the pans are on the smaller side (which makes it kind of hard to load up a regular-sized blush brush with them…but really, I probably wouldn’t use a blush brush with them anyway because I only need to use a tiny amount, and a big brush head would be excessive), I use a small duo fibre face brush with them instead.

I like the MAC 199 Small Duo Fibre Face Brush ($35). It’s small and fits these pans better than a big blush brush does. I just lightly swirl the brush head in one of the pans, tap most of it off, then buff, ever-so-gently, like whisker kisses on my cheeks.

Then I grab the biggest powder brush I can find and gently run that over my cheeks to slightly take the edge off. The end result looks very natural.

Since these are so bright, I assumed I would look like a resident of crazy clown town, but that totally wasn’t the case! I’ve been wearing the orange shade, Bright Response, on the regular, and it’s completely doable.

But hey, if you are all about the “too much,” that’s cool too. You can easily get there with these blushes.

mac bright response blush — Wearing MAC Bright Response

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A Bangin’ Good Time With the Bright Lipsticks in MAC Bangin’ Brilliant

July 15th, 2016 by Karen 11 Comments

mac bangin brilliant dreampot — The new MAC Bangin’ Brilliant Lipstick in Dreampot ($17)

I can’t remember — is wearing blue lipstick and blue eyeliner at the same time a do or a don’t?

Ah, the age-old question… LOL!

I don’t think there are any hard and fast, absolutely unbreakable makeup rules, so I’m gonna say “yes.” Blue eyeliner with blue lipstick is a total do.

I contemplated this conundrum the other day when I was wearing some teal winged liner (just for the heck of it) and decided to also try on a few of the lipsticks in the new MAC Bangin’ Brilliant collection.

You know that cray-cray lip colors are having a moment when you can visit a small mall and bump into a girl wearing a baby pink polo shirt and green lipstick (true story!), and the MAC Bangin’ Brilliants fit right in with that out-of-the box color movement happening right now.

The 29 new lipstick shades ($17 each) were recently added to the MAC permanent line, along with the Bangin’ Brilliant shadows and blushes.

With these colors, “basic” is about a million light years away. Of course there are bright pinks, oranges and reds, but there also blues, purples, a neon green, a midnight black, a stark white… Seriously, there’s some crazy sh*t up in the mix.

I don’t feel completely comfortable in some of them, to be honest, but if you have that runway stomp-walk kind of swag, they could look super cool.

I dunno… One of these days, I might get the urge to wear a light purple to Costco to buy kitty litter and a jumbo pack of hot dogs.

You never know. Life is short. Might as well.

Matte fuchsia pink Breathing Fire and matte bright red Mangrove are my favorites of the shades I’ve tried so far.

mac bangin brilliant breathing fire — Breathing Fire

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Be a Blue Belle With the MAC Good Luck Trolls Collection

July 14th, 2016 by Karen 25 Comments

Preeeetty sure these little trolls came alive last night and were walking around my condo. I thought I heard the pitter-patter of tiny feet going up and down the stairs…

Wait — I guess that could have been Tabs. 🙂

Who knows? Right now, though, it’s time to relive one of my greatest childhood fears.

THE TROLL DOLLS.

Did anyone else find them terrifying back in the day? There’s just something…eery about those big eyes and that crazy hair, or the fact that they were always butt neked.

I dunno…

But enough about that! Let’s take a look at the MAC Good Luck Trolls collection.

Arriving July 28 to the MAC website and coming to stores and counters August 4 through September 15, it might seem a little out of character for MAC to collaborate with these mythical, cave-dwelling beings of Scandinavian folklore…or it might not! The brand does have a reputation for doing crazy sh*t.

Aaand there’s also a Trolls movie coming out in November.

It’s a 22-piece collection with five Eye Shadows ($17 each), two Beauty Powders ($27 each), four Lipsticks ($18 each), four Lipglasses ($16 each), one pigment ($23), three glitters ($23 each), a Duo Fibre Face Brush ($32) and these two crazy temporary hairspray color thing-a-ma-bobbers called the Chroma Crazes ($20 each).

I feel like MAC misses opportunties sometimes with some of their limited edition collaborative collections, like the MAC Miss Piggy one (it could have been so much more!), but I’m going to go out on a limb and say that this one accurately captures the trolls in all their whimsical cheekiness.

So, um, with these colors…first of all, I think it’s important to remember that this is a collection about colorful trolls with gemstones in their bellies. So it’s not a collection about conservative, traditionally pretty, pretty makeup.

I think the pieces are pretty in their own way, but many are also outrageous and playful. If you remember the MAC Playland collection from a couple years ago, it had some CRAZY colors and pastels. Well, Good Luck Trolls is very much along those same lines. We have corals, chartreuses, hot pinks and blues.

There’s a blue lipstick, a blue eyeshadow, a blue lipgloss, a blue temporary hair coloring spray… I’m usually more drawn to neutrals, but for some reason I’m drawn to these blues. They’re BEAUTIFUL.

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Teal Liner Gives Me Wings! A MAC Bangin’ Brilliant Face of the Day

July 12th, 2016 by Karen 30 Comments

mac bangin brilliant fotd — Wearing some MAC Bangin’ Brilliant today!

Can I just say, it took all of my strength to NOT wear nude lips with this look today, but I dug deep and busted out a glossy, orangey red instead. Thank you, babe, for giving me strength!

You know, it’s funny…but this is basically the same look I’ve been rocking for the last five months or so — winged liner, lashes and lipstick — but with slight adjustments, and it’s kind of amazing (and I forget this sometimes) how a few simple tweaks can turn something routine and basic into something new and different.

mac bangin brilliant fotd k1 — Hey, girl, haaaay!

When I did my winged liner this morning, instead of doing a teeny, tiny kitten flick in basic black, I used a teal eyeshadow (worn as an eyeliner) and exaggerated the flick a little more than usual.

Then for my lashes, instead of using mascara, I grabbed my good ol’ trusty Ardell Demi-Wispies (which I’m able to put on in my sleep now, for reals).

And for my lips, instead of going the nude route, I reached for a glossy reddish orange gloss.

mac bangin brilliant fotd swatches — Summery teals and oranges, yum!

Most of the key products I used for the look are from MAC, with a couple of items from the new MAC Bangin’ Brilliant collection.

Remember Teal Appeal, that teal I was drooling over yesterday?

Yeah! I managed to get it on my lids sooner than later (small victories!), and that’s what I’m wearing on my lash lines. I’m also wearing MAC Bangin’ Brilliant Blush in Bright Response on my cheeks.

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The Day in Beauty Vol. 22: The MAC Bangin’ Brilliant Eyeshadows and Baby Steps

July 11th, 2016 by Karen 29 Comments

mac bangin brilliant eyeshadows 1 — MAC Bangin’ Brilliant Eyeshadows in Up At Dawn, Suspiciously Sweet, Fashion’s Field Day, I’m Into It, Oh My Mocha! and Ruddy

Can I just raise my crazy cat lady coffee cup to you for your great advice in the comments on this post the other day? Thank you!

I read every single comment, and I’ve just been thinking about them and taking everything you said to heart.

Honestly, sweets, what would I do without you? For all of these years… I don’t even know. From makeup advice to baby advice to keeping my head above water. Thank you! You’re wonderful. 🙂

mac banging brilliant eyeshadows 2 — MAC Bangin’ Brilliant Eyeshadows in Shock Factor, New Crop, Teal Appeal, In The Shadows, Zinc Blue and How Royal

So like I said, I’ve been taking everything you said to heart, and last weekend I just did what I could handle, which was 20 minutes using some non-neutral shadows.

I used two from the new MAC Bangin’ Brilliant collection — which, yeah, you may have noticed that bright teal and that neon yellow waving at you from across the room up there, LOL! — and gave myself 20 minutes.

I told myself, “You know what? If it turns out sloppy, fine. I haven’t done any fancy blending in a while, so whatever happens, happens. No pressure.”

And this is what happened! I ended up with a lightly smoky, sort of purplish, coralish shimmery look. And even though I could’ve done it better, and the perfectionist in me is kind of poking me in the ribs, at least I did it, ya know? At least I tried something a little ambitious this time, and I’m happy about that.

mac banging brilliant — Wearing MAC Fashion’s Field Day Eyeshadow on my inner lid and Oh My Mocha! Eyeshadow on my outer lid; on my lips I’m wearing NARS Lodhi

So, the shadows here — part of MAC Bangin’ Brilliant — they launched last month at select MAC locations and online. The release was called a “collection” (airquotes), but really, it was mostly just an introduction to some bright new Eyeshadows, Dazzleshadows, Powder Blushes and Lipsticks that were added to the MAC permanent line.

Here are pictures of 12 of the 14 eyeshadows, which are $16 each.

The underlying (albeit in your face) theme here is brights, and one of these days, hopefully soon, I’ll get that shimmery teal shadow, Teal Appeal, on my lids. 🙂

mac bangin brilliant eyeshadow swatches — MAC Bangin’ Brilliant Eyeshadow swatches from the left in Up At Dawn, Suspiciously Sweet, Fashion’s Filed Day, I’m Into It, Oh My Mocha! and Ruddy

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Look No Further for Your Perfect Summer Lipstick! The MAC Huggable Lipcolours Are All You Need

July 4th, 2016 by Jen Clark 11 Comments

I’ve taken a break from the heavy makeup lately, honestly, probably out of pure laziness (pregnancy saps my energy), but I’m kind of digging it! On days that I actually put on makeup, it’s usually dewy skin that showcases my new summer freckles, brows and winged liner (because I will always wear winged liner), some mascara, and an easy-to-wear lipstick like these $14 MAC Huggable Lipcolours.

You know those lipsticks that feel so good to put on that you can sit there for a few minutes and just smear them all over your face? These Huggable Lipcolours feel like that to me.

Weird, I know, but don’t judge me. They just feel so good!

They feel almost like a really luxurious, comfortable lip balm, and with a nice amount of color payoff, they’re the perfect lipsticks to keep in your bag and pop on throughout the day, whether you’re wearing more makeup or not.

I also have to commend MAC on the packaging. The gunmetal tube feels so heavy and expensive. I like it a lot more than MAC’s standard plastic lipstick packaging.

I really can’t believe you get such an amazing product and impressive packaging for only $14. That seems like such a good deal to me!

From left to right: MAC Origami Orange, Bonsai Bloom, Good Luck Mochi, What A Feeling!, Seoul-ful, Cantonese Carnation

There are 20 colors to choose from, and I have six of them here.

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Bringing Back the ’90s With MAC Tendertalk Lip Balm

June 29th, 2016 by Adia Goss 11 Comments

mac tender talk balms — You just might need a MAC Tendertalk Balm

These MAC Tendertalk Lip Balms 100% sent me on a trip down memory lane. 🙂 They’re meant to react to your natural pH level to give you a perfect lip tint. Now all I need is a mood ring and I’m set!

Please tell me I’m not the only one totally reminiscing about those Hypercolor T-shirts that changed color with your body heat!! Lightweight but super hydrating, the Tendertalks are available now in five sheer shades at Nordstrom for $20 each.

Candy Wrapped, Play With Me, Pretty Me Up, Side Dish and Teddy Pink adjust and intensify ever-so slightly after being applied to give you a very natural flush, but to me the best thing about them is how incredibly moisturizing and shiny they are without feeling heavy or sticky at all. They also work great as bases under liquid lipsticks because they provide lots of slip but don’t affect the wear time or the look of matte liquid lipsticks.

mac tender talk balm — Available in five sheer shades

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